Last time on Jin, our hero has realized that the Evil Brain Foetus has brought him to the second half of nineteenth century and, appropriately (I think?), this episode starts with... yeah, Evil Brain Foetus again. Ugh. It's in the patient's brain, so I guess we're in the realm of flashbacks, but then it turns and looks at us and aAAAAHHH! Uncanny Valley!
Thankfully, this was just a nightmare. Jin catapults into awakening and we're treated to a calming shot of the village he's staying in. Jin walks out of the house he's slept in and we learn that he's been staying with Tachibanas (that's Book Cover Girl, Kyotaro and Mother) for a week now. Book Cover Girl joins him and we finally get her name - Saki. And I must've been watching too much Avatar: The Last Airbender, because I've had to write the name three times before I realized it's not Suki. Anyway, Saki's still really grateful that Jin saved Kyotaro, but when she gets annoying about it, Mother sends her to do breakfast. Thus saved from further social embarrassments, Jin goes to check on Kyotaro and out of all sudden, the boy states that the foreigners are going to be kicked out of Japan and so he'll become lordless samurai. I don't really follow how the two are connected and the text isn't clear about it either. Perhaps the author - or translator - didn't mean "expulsion" but "influx"? Huh. Regardless, we also learn that Jin didn't tell the Tachibanas about his time travel and his cover story is that he has Identity Amnesia, which promptly backfires when Kyotaro offers to search for Jin's origins. Jin manages to defuse the situation, though, so I guess I should write this down as one of the tricks for if I ever travel in time against my wish. Although I dearly hope it won't involve any Evil Brain Foetuses.
Jin is writing something down and finally someone takes notice of his year 2000 gadgets, namely, a ballpoint pen. That's another 5 Like points for Saki. However, we also learn that she's sixteen years old. That sort of worries me, because she's quite obviously set up as Jin's love interest, and there are more years between them than has passed since Saki's birth. Not exactly May-December Romance, but not very comfy, at least for me.
This matter aside, Saki wants to take Jin out to town, but he's rather conspicuous, despite having put on local attire. To cover this, she fashions him this classic samurai short ponytail... from a horse hair, because his are too short. She can't stop mocking him and I like her even more for it. Mother, however, isn't all that convinced that he'll blend in and orders him to keep his head low.
The manga then takes us for full three pages of beautiful panoramas. It turns out the "village" is actually on outskirts of a really huge city. So well, my wrong. Jin's sightseeing before he realizes what Mother was talking about - he's over twenty centimetres taller than locals. The locals, however, don't pay him the slightest attention - that is, until someone starts screaming for help. Jin forgoes Mother's advice completely and, accompanied by first gratuitous lightning! of this chapter, rushes to help. Turns out it's some kid suffocating because rice got stuck in his throat or something. When hanging the kid upside down fails to work (and yes, Jin really does that), our hero performs Impromptu Tracheotomy with a knife big enough to be called wakizashi. The locals, obviously, aren't pleased with this development, but he's a giant maniac with an enormous knife next to a child's throat, so they, quite reasonably, keep their distance. Thankfully, rather than going full on Ax-Crazy like the locals expect him to, Jin manages to save kid's life, and the kid breathing again is accompanied by the second gratuitous lightning! of this chapter. The locals cheer and the kid's taken to his house, where Jin, with Saki's assistance, returns his respiratory system to proper order and decides that screw not interfering with history, he's saving lives.
And that's it for this chapter. You know, it makes me wonder: Jin's a neurosurgeon. He works with brains. I can understand, then, that he managed to perform an operation on Kyotaro's head, as that's still within his field of expertise. However, today's chapter bothers me, because tracheotomy is definitely not part of neurosurgery. Even if Jin's been informed how to do this on his medical studies, it's been years since he's been learning that. He has no business in practicing this skill, and yet he cuts the kid's throat open like he's been doing this every year. This makes me start to wonder - is he a Mary Sue, or just, as his behavior with people would suggest, a Bunny-Ears Lawyer?
I guess we shall see soon. And for now, coming up next: chapter two samurai return! An epidemic arrives! Professional jealousy rises its ugly head!
Yeah, good days are pretty much over.
